Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Stocking Stuffer Request

While everybody has their credit cards out buying a "secret Santa" moustache mug for their most hated colleague at the office, I wonder if some of you might want to throw a little cash my way while you're at it? For reasons I haven't figured out, this blog is doing miserably at selling blog-ads. Indeed, if it weren't for my friend Michael Shaw at BagNews notes (whose great graphics make any blog look better than it already does) I would have no ads at all today. During the biggest shopping season of the year, no less.

I do not know how others sell blogAds on their blogs. I belong to the "Advertise Liberally" blog-ad network which is designed to sell across the liberal spectrum. I don't think my problems are because my ads are too expensive. I charge what everybody else charges. There have been some months that I collected a few sheckles and they really came in handy. But now, not so much.

I don't have the kind of regular community that a lot of the more popular bloggers have (although I would argue that my commenters are among the sharpest in the blogosphere) but my traffic is within the top 20 of all liberal blogs, which isn't bad for a solo blogger like myself. I've won awards, even. But one week shy of my third anniversary and I'm back to doing this for free. I may be a raving leftist, but I have to live in this capitalist world.

There is an element of the Bataan death march to daily blogging when you do it for three years running. I write slowly and do a lot of research and reading, so it takes more time than is readily evident. Every minute of it is fun, of course, but it's still ridiculous. In fact it's so much fun that I would never expect to make serious money doing it. Life could not possibly be that sweet. But I can't justify doing this without any compensation at all either. I wish to gawd that I were an eccentric billionaire who blogs psuedonymously in order to see how the little people live. Unfortunately, that is very far from the truth. (Look at it this way. If I were an eccentric billionaire, I could afford to buy my own bandwidth instead of blogging for free on blogspot, right?) No, sad to say, like most people I have those boring financial needs --- for things like shelter and food. And books. And MaxCat Senior in chicken and lamb flavor. In a blogging world where money is to be made, I just can't justify to myself that I would do it for free. I can't justify to my family that I continue turn down work for no other compensation either.

I've never asked for money on this blog before, and I will probably not ask again.(As you can gather, this embarrasses the hell out of me, which is why I'm rambling like a lunatic.) But, if you like what I do and have gotten something out of what I've written these past three years, a couple of bucks in the tip jar (in the left column over there) would be very greatly appreciated.

Oh --- and if you don't have any extra money, you could do me a big favor by just clicking on the ads I run. (I suspect that part of my problem is that I don't get much click through.) So, if you want to support me but you don't have any extra change (which I completely understand) just use my page to check out the ubiquitous blog ads. In fact, go over right now and click on BagNews notes and read what he is saying today. You won't regret it.

And Happy Hollandaise to everyone.

digby

Update: And many, many thanks to the folks who have thrown me a tip already this year, a couple of you more than once. I am very grateful.